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Reducing White Juror Bias: The Role of Race Salience and Racial Attitudes 1
Author(s) -
Cohn Ellen S.,
Bucolo Donald,
Pride Misha,
Sommers Samuel R.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2009.00511.x
Subject(s) - salience (neuroscience) , psychology , race (biology) , verdict , racial bias , white (mutation) , prejudice (legal term) , salient , social psychology , racism , criminology , law , gender studies , sociology , political science , cognitive psychology , biochemistry , chemistry , gene
Both Black and White jurors exhibit a racial bias by being more likely to find defendants of a different race guilty than defendants who are of the same race. Sommers & Ellsworth (2000, 2001) found that salient racial issues in a trial reduced White juror racial bias toward a Black defendant. We examined if race salience could reduce White juror racial bias, even for individuals who reported high levels of racism. Making race salient reduced White juror racial bias toward a Black defendant. Jurors' racist beliefs were only associated with the verdict when the defendant's race was not made salient. This finding suggests that the effects of individual prejudice toward a Black defendant can be reduced by making the defendant's race salient.